Community News

Call for Colorado hunting boycott misses mark

C.J. Kausel of Aurora admires the sunset in dusky grouse country with his German shorthaired pointer. (Scott Willoughby, Denver Post file)

The people have spoken. And, in the end, the call of Colorado elk and deer was louder.

Concerns over a threatened boycott of Colorado hunting spurred in reaction to new gun laws enacted last spring have been put to rest, now that the state's primary big game hunting seasons have closed. The much-talked-about boycott was a bust.

"Through the main big game seasons, we were up about 5,000 licenses over last year at this time," said Randy Hampton, spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. "Just for deer and elk, we were up by about 6,000. Bear licenses sold were up about 1,400. We sold about 2,800 fewer pronghorn licenses, which brought the overall big game numbers down, but that was primarily because we reduced the quota."

Final numbers won't be available until next year, but the initial figures are a positive sign for Colorado's $1.8 billion hunting and fishing industry. The significance is magnified within CPW, the agency charged with managing the state's wildlife resources. It draws a significant portion of its operating budget from nonresident big game licenses. The division last year collected $38 million in elk and deer licenses from nonresidents, compared with $7.6 million from in-state hunters.

The biggest revenue generators are nonresident elk licenses, both the $589 limited licenses hunters must apply for and $586 over-the-counter licenses that become available later in the summer. By comparison, a limited elk hunting license for adult Colorado residents costs only $49, and over-the-counter resident licenses are $46.

"Again, we don't have the final figures, but we know that our net sales dollars are up as well. Pretty substantially," Hampton said. "Based on that, your gut tells you that nonresident licenses were either stable or up as well. There certainly wasn't a significant decline because a large number would be noticed on the end result."

Increased demandColorado attracted national attention and threats of a hunting boycott last spring after Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a trio of gun laws restricting magazine capacity to 15 rounds and mandating background checks, paid by the purchaser, on most gun sales. The controversial bills were approved by the state legislature shortly before the big game application deadline, generating concerns over a potential decrease in demand for limited licenses in the state's premier hunting units.

Instead, the state's big game limited license applications increased by 17,000, or 4 percent, over the 2012 figures, totaling nearly 469,000. The increase in demand apparently was reflected in unlimited over-the-counter sales during the second and third rifle seasons this fall. With the largest elk herd in the nation, Colorado is the only state that offers an unlimited number of over-the-counter bull elk licenses to out-of-state hunters.

"If you want to go elk hunting, you are going to come here," said Eric Whirley, owner of Action Taxidermy in Gypsum, adding that his business was the best it has been since opening nine years ago. "We get a lot of out-of-state repeat business, a lot of the same groups of guys come back every year. We saw the same faces this year. You aren't going to Michigan to go elk hunting because Colorado changed a law."

The combined number of big game and small game hunting licenses sold in fiscal 2011-12 was: resident 489,327 and nonresident 86,493. The state doesn't break down big game vs. small game, but the vast majority of nonresident license sales are big game.

Katelin Cook, director of the Meeker Chamber of Commerce, said she felt like she saw fewer hunters in town this fall, although that wasn't necessarily reflected by businesses that depend upon spending by hunters. Stan Wyatt of Wyatt's Sports Center in Meeker said he didn't see any difference in license sales from 2012, and while some hotels saw a few less visitors, the recently remodeled Elk Mountain Inn in Meeker had more.

"I didn't personally notice any impact. I've got pretty loyal clients, and Colorado is still the best place in the country to kill a big mule deer," said hunting guide Miles Fedinic of FMF Outdoors in Craig. "To boycott a private company making money is one thing, but to boycott an entire state where all the money is going to the division of wildlife and parks, it's a whole different deal. It doesn't help anything to take money away from wildlife. The government is still going to run, with hunters or without us."

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